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aloha to you as well. I am not sure how the engine attaches to the fuselage on the corsair. on the hellcat, as you can see from some of my earlier pics, there is a stub on the front of the fuse. this stub has a little pin on one side that keys into a notch on the kit engine so that everything is aligned properly. the quickboost engine had a separate thin backing plate that attached to the back of the engine plate that had that same keyed slot. The way I did it was to check the engine depth inside the cowl compared to the kit engine. I determined that putting the backing plate directly on to the engine plate would give me the proper engine height with just a little bit of sanding to the engine plate, so i sanded the engine plate back until I had the correct height, then routed out a crater on the engine plate where the stub from the fuse would go so that it didnt interfere with the fit of the backing plate since the fuse stub would have otherwise hit the engine plate instead of just the backing plate. Once that was done I attached the backing plate to the engine plate. the backing plate attached right to the engine plate provided the keyed alignment just like the kit engine and the engine height was correct from dry fitting, sanding the engine plate, and routing it out. the other way i could have gone was to sand the stub on the fuse down so it did not protrude any further than the backing plate's thickness, but i figured my method would provide a bit more of a solid attachment point. I hope that made sense, if not drop me a PM and I can take a few pics of the back to show you what I mean.

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Many thanks, this is quite helpful. I noticed the notch on the Corsair fit as well, but in that case the flaps behind the cowling (i.e. on the back side of the engine part, facing the fusilage) don't mate well without some sanding. (Unlike the hellcat, there's no QB firewall involved.) So what you said reinforces what I thought, which is that a bit of sanding down the back of the engine is probably all that's needed - the front fits fine and gives (as best I can tell based on the kit parts) the correct height. One last question, if you don't mind: was it just a simple drill job to open up the resin engine for the hole where the propeller goes? The hole on my resin engine is way too small to fit the prop in. Anyhow, you saved me some stress that I wasn't totally off-base, and so much appreciated.

Very nice work on the Hellcat again -- that one is on my list of planes I gotta do, but first the Wildcat (after the corsair). Thanks again!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Howdy all. I finally got around to a little bit of progress. I finished wiring up the engine and got it attached to the plane. I also finished up the really nice gunsight from Quickboost. Once I drill out the exhausts, I can attach them and the cowl permanently. Then I will attach the vac windscreen and it is off to paint! I think I still might get it in in time, depends on how the holidays are with time to work on it. As for the hole for the prop, I am using an Oscureco prop and not the kit prop, so I just drilled out the hole in the engine the diameter it already was and I will use a piece of brass rod to afix the prop once it is time. The prop won't turn but its not like I am going to be putting this in front of a fan to watch it turn anyways. If I were going to use the kit prop, then yes, the hole is too small. you can either drill it bigger, which can be difficult to make sure it is centered, so drill a smaller hole first. or you can cut off the kit stem and replace it with brass rod or something similar. you can even make it spin by cutting out the back of the engine and putting some form of knob on the shaft from that side to keep it from sliding back out. I didn't bother on this one but I did a Dora with an aftermarket prop that i made like that. Thanks for looking!

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Howdy all! Well, I attached the cowl, the gunsight, and the windscreen and now everything has been pre-shaded. I hope to at least get the white on before Christmas, but we shall see how hectic things are around here. Thanks for looking!

preshadetop.jpg

preshadebottom.jpg

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I managed to grab some free time this morning and shoot the white. Well, it isn't really white, I didn't want it to look too stark white since this plane was later in the war but a -3 and was based on Guam, not pristine conditions, so I added a touch of gray and a touch of tan to tone down the white. I think it turned out well, looks white but not too stark. Thanks for looking.

bottomwhite.jpg

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Got the Dark Sea Blue on now. Finally looks like a proper tri-color Hellcat. I hope to have time to gloss it tomorrow morning, decals tomorrow night, then a combination of flat coat, final assembly, and weathering. I hope to make it by the deadline.

darkseabluetop.jpg

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Looks very nice, jrallman! I hope you can get it done before deadline! I got one question. I just recently got (x-mas gift) one Tamiya 1/48 birdcage Corsair. Are the nightfighter schemes different between this and the Hellcat you're doing?

Azgaron

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Well, things got a little too busy for me to get this done by the deadline, but I should finish up in the next couple days and I will post pics then. I was not aware of any Corsairs used in the nightfighter role during WWII, especially a birdcage, but if they were, they probably would have been standard colors. The decal sheets I have for the Hellcat nightfighters all have them in standard camo, either tri color or over all GSB. The only exception that I am aware of in my stash is the TBM-3D that possibly had dark sea blue or black as the bottom color instead of white.

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I must say I feel a bit stupid, but I hadn't opened the box when I asked :salute: The kit can be built either as a F4U-1 or F4U-2 with some radar bulb thingie on the wing. There are three possible markings in the kit. One for VF-17 with the same tri color scheme as yours, one VMF-213 with a two color scheme, and VMF(N)-532 with the same two tone scheme. It doesn't say anywhere which time period, only that the VF-17 was stationed on the USS Bunker Hill. I guess I'll need to dig in more into the history of the things I build :nanner:

Azgaron

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  • 1 month later...

Well, here are the finished pics finally. I completed the build some time ago, but have been rather lazy about getting the camera and tripod out to take pics, but here they are. I figured I better get this up before Eduard F6Fs start showing up and making these Hasegawa ones look bad! Thanks to all for looking and joining in!

starboardfront.jpg

top.jpg

portrear.jpg

front.jpg

cockpitIP.jpg

bottom.jpg

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